Welcome to Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI

The world has truly entered the 21st century --
Pope Benedict XVI has a Twitter account. His holiness’ first tweets appeared on
the @Pontifex feed, along with seven
coordinated accounts with identical content in Spanish, German, French,
Italian, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic.

According to an interview with Claire Diaz-Ortiz, manager of
social innovation at Twitter, “They (the Vatican) want to reach believers where they are and
they know that believers are online.”

On
Wednesday, Dec. 12, Pope Benedict XVI cast his first tweet:

I suppose the Vatican was right about believers being online,
because in a matter of five days, the Pope now has more than 1.2 million
followers.

According to Diaz-Ortiz, “The Vatican wants the Pope to connect with people as much
as possible and are encouraging engagement with the Catholic community…”

Now
you can follow the Pope and receive his words and wisdom in 140 characters or
less.

As
with any public event, our GoComics editorial cartoonists had something to say
about the Pope’s recent adoption of social media.

Check out the Pope’s Twitter account -- @Pontifex
-- for yourself and tell us what you think. Does the Pope’s social media presence
take away from the papal persona, or is it an innovative way to reach out to the
Roman Catholic community at large?